cebi fall summit 2010 web marketing 101 bryan peters president exair corporation

CEBI Fall Summit 2010Web Marketing 101

Bryan PetersPresident

Exair Corporation

EXAIR.com

Over 100,000 current or future customers visit EXAIR.com every month

EXAIR.com : Origins

• Original project was to build a BBS in 1995 • That project was scrapped in late 1995 in

favor of web site

• First web site built in 1996 using WordPerfect

• Web hosting through WorldCom cost around $300/month

EXAIR.com : Goals (Original)

• Allow customers to download installation and maintenance sheets

• Scope expanded to allow customers to

download CAD drawings

• Adobe PDF format became popular in the mid-1990’s and became an option for literature distribution

EXAIR.com : Strategy

• Make every information transaction easier

• Automate some customer interactions

• Deliver deeper product and technical content than a printed catalog

• Fully commit - Use offline assets (letterhead, product labeling, advertising, catalogs, business cards, etc.) to drive traffic online

EXAIR.com : Content

• Applications – Application Engineers

• PDF files – Graphic Designer / Marketing

• CAD files - Engineering

• Presentations – Application Engineers

• FAQs – Application Engineers • Press Releases – Marketing / Engineering

• Videos – Marketing / Application Engineers

Finding ways to reuse content is critical!

EXAIR.com : E-commerce

• In 1998, we began selling products online • We accept credit cards or purchase orders • Only end users buying at list price targeted • Over 10k online orders

• All online orders flow automatically into our ERP system for processing, and then back to the web site for automatic customer notification and shipment tracking

Co-branded web sites

• In 2000, launched first co-branded web site • Today, we have 60 sites in 23 languages

EXAIR Blog : Origins

• In 2008, launched a blog as another way to highlight applications using EXAIR products

• In 2009, the blog evolved to include content

beyond product applications

EXAIR Blog : Strategy

• Make blog an external gateway to EXAIR.com • Get contributions from other departments

• Keep marketing largely away from the blog • Show a personality – this is a branding tool

• Words are boring. Humor + videos = traffic • Do not focus on selling through the blog • Make only ~50% of blog product related

Search Marketing : Overview - Organic

Organic Search

• Driven by the content of your web pages

• Unpredictable, inconsistent and slow

• Created an industry promising fool’s gold

• Relatively inexpensive

• Important for a portion of the audience

• A tool like WebPosition can help

Search Marketing : Overview - Paid

Paid Search

• Show me the money – can be expensive

• More predictable than SEO

• Quickly changeable

• Increasingly competitive

• Important for a portion of the audience

• Mix “high rent” (Google, Yahoo, Bing) with “low rent” (7 Search, Looksmart)

Search Marketing : Vital Info - Organic

Organic Search

• Beware promises of top position in Google

• Content drives position – and you control the content

• Some users consider ONLY organic results and ignore ads

• If you depend solely on this, you will wake up hungry one day

Search Marketing : Vital Info - Paid

Paid Search

• Easy and quick to start a Google program

• Online tools through Google will give you estimates for traffic and cost for any keywords you can imagine

• Pay close attention to settings for language and country

• Don’t be a hero – being #1 isn’t realistic for every keyword

Social Media : Examples

• Blog (constant stream of fresh content) • Twitter (most instant information platform) • Facebook (largest ad platform in the world) • YouTube (2nd largest search engine)

• LinkedIn (business networking) • Viral videos (don’t underestimate humor)

• Docstoc/Scribd (online libraries)

Social Media : Why?

Are any of these right for your business?

Are your customers already using them?

Are your competitors already using them?

Can it be an effective new channel for information distribution?

Facebook : Why?

• “Like” buttons are everywhere – find a popular web site without one

• The single deepest consumer preference database on the planet

• The largest ad platform in the world • The largest peer-to-peer recommendation

engine in the world

Facebook : Our Strategy

What we are doing:

• EXAIR uses social media, particularly Facebook, to show our humanity

• Charitable giving, volunteerism and sponsorships are published here

• Employees are recognized for their “off the

field” efforts here • Every department contributes potential

content each week

Brand Monitoring

What are your customers saying about you?

What are your competitors saying about you?

What are your competitors doing that you don’t know about yet?

Where do you find industry information first?

Brand Monitoring

• Google Alerts• Most valuable tool for brand monitoring• Has blind spots in social media

• Social Mention• Like Google Alerts but focused on social

• Twitter• Press releases are being released to

Twitter before they hit any other place

• One of the two “go to” destinations for customer complaints, along with Facebook

Contact Frequency

How often do customers hear from you?

Are you defending “your” corner of their brain?

• Printed Newsletter – quarterly • E-Newsletter – every 3 weeks • Blog – was weekly, now daily • Facebook – daily • Twitter – several (5-10) times per day from

multiple accounts

EXAIR Links

• www.exair.com• blog.exair.com• facebook.com/exair• www.youtube.com/user/exaircorporation• www.linkedin.com/company/963456• @exair• @exair_ke• @exair_bf• @exair_jp• @exair_nr• @exair_bp

Questions?

Questions?

CEBI Fall Summit 2010Web Marketing 101

Bryan PetersPresident

Exair Corporation